1CAPINFOS(1) The Wireshark Network Analyzer CAPINFOS(1)
2
6 capinfos - Prints information about capture files
7
9 capinfos [ -a ] [ -A ] [ -b ] [ -B ] [ -c ] [ -C ] [ -d ] [ -e ] [ -E ]
10 [ -h ] [ -H ] [ -i ] [ -l ] [ -L ] [ -m ] [ -N ] [ -o ] [ -q ] [ -Q ]
11 [ -r ] [ -R ] [ -s ] [ -S ] [ -t ] [ -T ] [ -u ] [ -x ] [ -y ] [ -z ]
12 <infile> ...
13
15 Capinfos is a program that reads one or more capture files and returns
16 some or all available statistics (infos) of each <infile> in one of two
17 types of output formats: long or table.
18 The long output is suitable for a human to read. The table output is
20 useful for generating a report that can be easily imported into a
21 spreadsheet or database.
22 The user specifies what type of output (long or table) and which
24 statistics to display by specifying flags (options) that corresponding
25 to the report type and desired infos. If no options are specified,
26 Capinfos will report all statistics available in "long" format.
27 Options are processed from left to right order with later options
29 superseding or adding to earlier options.
30 Capinfos is able to detect and read the same capture files that are
32 supported by Wireshark. The input files don't need a specific filename
33 extension; the file format and an optional gzip compression will be
34 automatically detected. Near the beginning of the DESCRIPTION section
35 of wireshark(1) or
36 <http://www.wireshark.org/docs/man-pages/wireshark.html> is a detailed
37 description of the way Wireshark handles this, which is the same way
38 Capinfos handles this.
39
41 -a Displays the start time of the capture. Capinfos considers the
42 earliest timestamp seen to be the start time, so the first packet
43 in the capture is not necessarily the earliest - if packets exist
44 "out-of-order", time-wise, in the capture, Capinfos detects this.
45 -A Generate all infos. By default capinfos will display all infos
47 values for each input file, but enabling any of the individual
48 display infos options will disable the generate all option.
49 -b Separate infos with ASCII SPACE (0x20) characters. This option is
51 only useful when generating a table style report (-T). The various
52 info values will be separated (delimited) from one another with a
53 single ASCII SPACE character.
54 NOTE: Since some of the header labels as well as some of the value
56 fields contain SPACE characters. This option is of limited value
57 unless one of the quoting options (-q or -Q) is also specified.
58 -B Separate the infos with ASCII TAB characters. This option is only
60 useful when generating a table style report (-T). The various info
61 values will be separated (delimited) from one another with a single
62 ASCII TAB character. The TAB character is the default delimiter
63 when -T style report is enabled.
64 -c Displays the number of packets in the capture file.
66 -C Cancel processing any additional files if and when capinfos should
68 fail to open an input file. By default capinfos will attempt to
69 open each and every file name argument.
70 Note: An error message will be written to stderr whenever capinfos
72 fails to open a file regardless of whether the -C option is
73 specified or not. Upon exit, capinfos will return an error status
74 if any errors occurred during processing.
75 -d Displays the total length of all packets in the file, in bytes.
77 This counts the size of the packets as they appeared in their
78 original form, not as they appear in this file. For example, if a
79 packet was originally 1514 bytes and only 256 of those bytes were
80 saved to the capture file (if packets were captured with a snaplen
81 or other slicing option), Capinfos will consider the packet to have
82 been 1514 bytes.
83 -e Displays the end time of the capture. Capinfos considers the
85 latest timestamp seen to be the end time, so the last packet in the
86 capture is not necessarily the latest - if packets exist "out-of-
87 order", time-wise, in the capture, Capinfos detects this.
88 -E Displays the per-file encapsulation of the capture file.
90 -h Prints the help listing and exits.
92 -H Displays the SHA1, RIPEMD160, and MD5 hashes for the file.
94 -i Displays the average data rate, in bits/sec
96 -l Display the snaplen (if any) for a file. snaplen (if available) is
98 determined from the capture file header and by looking for
99 truncated records in the capture file.
100 -L Generate long report. Capinfos can generate two different styles
102 of reports. The "long" report is the default style of output and
103 is suitable for a human to use.
104 -m Separate the infos with comma (,) characters. This option is only
106 useful when generating a table style report (-T). The various info
107 values will be separated (delimited) from one another with a single
108 comma "," character.
109 -N Do not quote the infos. This option is only useful when generating
111 a table style report (-T). Excluding any quoting characters around
112 the various values and using a TAB delimiter produces a very
113 "clean" table report that is easily parsed with CLI tools. By
114 default infos are NOT quoted.
115 -o Displays "True" if packets exist in strict chronological order or
117 "False" if one or more packets in the capture exists "out-of-order"
118 time-wise.
119 -q Quote infos with single quotes ('). This option is only useful when
121 generating a table style report (-T). When this option is enabled,
122 each value will be encapsulated within a pair of single quote (')
123 characters. This option (when used with the -m option) is useful
124 for generating one type of CSV style file report.
125 -Q Quote infos with double quotes ("). This option is only useful
127 when generating a table style report (-T). When this option is
128 enabled, each value will be encapsulated within a pair of double
129 quote (") characters. This option (when used with the -m option)
130 is useful for generating the most common type of CSV style file
131 report.
132 -r Do not generate header record. This option is only useful when
134 generating a table style report (-T). If this option is specified
135 then no header record will be generated within the table report.
136 -R Generate header record. This option is only useful when generating
138 a table style report (-T). A header is generated by default. A
139 header record (if generated) is the first line of data reported and
140 includes labels for all the columns included within the table
141 report.
142 -s Displays the size of the file, in bytes. This reports the size of
144 the capture file itself.
145 -S Display the start and end times as seconds since January 1, 1970.
147 Handy for synchronizing dumps using editcap -t.
148 -t Displays the capture type of the capture file.
150 -T Generate a table report. A table report is a text file that is
152 suitable for importing into a spreadsheet or database. Capinfos
153 can build a tab delimited text file (the default) or several
154 variations on Comma-separated values (CSV) files.
155 -u Displays the capture duration, in seconds. This is the difference
157 in time between the earliest packet seen and latest packet seen.
158 -x Displays the average packet rate, in packets/sec
160 -y Displays the average data rate, in bytes/sec
162 -z Displays the average packet size, in bytes
164
166 To see a description of the capinfos options use:
167 capinfos -h
169 To generate a long form report for the capture file mycapture.pcap use:
171 capinfos mycapture.pcap
173 To generate a TAB delimited table form report for the capture file
175 mycapture.pcap use:
176 capinfos -T mycapture.pcap
178 To generate a CSV style table form report for the capture file
180 mycapture.pcap use:
181 capinfos -T -m -Q mycapture.pcap
183 or
185 capinfos -TmQ mycapture.pcap
187 To generate a TAB delimited table style report with just the filenames,
189 capture type, capture encapsulation type and packet count for all the
190 pcap files in the current directory use:
191 capinfos -T -t -E -c *.pcap
193 or
195 capinfos -TtEs *.pcap
197 Note: The ability to use of filename globbing characters are a feature
199 of *nix style command shells.
200 To generate a CSV delimited table style report of all infos for all
202 pcap files in the current directory and write it to a text file called
203 mycaptures.csv use:
204 capinfos -TmQ *.pcap >mycaptures.csv
206 The resulting mycaptures.csv file can be easily imported into
208 spreadsheet applications.
209
211 pcap(3), wireshark(1), mergecap(1), editcap(1), tshark(1), dumpcap(1),
212 pcap-filter(7) or tcpdump(8) if it doesn't exist
213
215 Capinfos is part of the Wireshark distribution. The latest version of
216 Wireshark can be found at <http://www.wireshark.org>.
217 HTML versions of the Wireshark project man pages are available at:
219 <http://www.wireshark.org/docs/man-pages>.
220
222 Original Author
223 -------- ------
224 Ian Schorr <ian[AT]ianschorr.com>
225 Contributors
228 ------------
229 Gerald Combs <gerald[AT]wireshark.org>
230 Jim Young <jyoung[AT]gsu.edu>
2311.8.10 2012-06-05 CAPINFOS(1)